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FCP X Six Months Later – Blog Post
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[David Chai] “I wish (apart from the multicam and video out) there was a non-linked mode and a track mode. I think that 99% of the 1% would pretty much be satisfied with that for FCP X.”
But then they would have called it FCP8 and we wouldn’t have this forum.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[stephen sarsfield] “i wish apple would give those of us who have invested in their edit product over the years a token discount on X!”
After you convince them to do that, could I hire you to convince all the book publishers that I’ve given $16-25 bucks a copy for the 400-500 hardback books in my library to let me trade them in on a nice discount on downloading the iBooks versions of what I already own??? Now THAT would be truly sweet gift!
“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor
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[stephen sarsfield] “i wish apple would give those of us who have invested in their edit product over the years a token discount on X!
“Really? $299 is the cheapest upgrade I’ve ever purchased.
I wish they would give away Final Cut Studio 3 for free to people who purchase the new FCX. I think this would be a fantastic value, keep more people in the Apple camp, and help send the message that Studio 3 is still awesome, and that while FCX isn’t quite a complete replacement Final Cut Pro yet (I still need FCP7 for many many things), it’s headed that way.
and do I need to divulge that this isn’t a genuine ad?
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FCX. She tempts me, abuses me, beats me up, makes me feel worthless, then in the end she comes around, helps me get my work done, gives me hope and I can’t stop thinking about her.Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com -
[Mark Morache] “Really? $299 is the cheapest upgrade I’ve ever purchased.”
Upgrade? X isn’t even a cross-grade or a down-grade much less an upgrade.
However, I will agree that Stephen’s idea for a discount does seem a trifle over the top.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comDon’t miss my new Creative Cow Podcast: Bringing “The Whale” to the Big Screen:
https://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/Podcast-Series-2-MikeParfitandSuzanneChisholm/1POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.
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I stand corrected.
I should have said “It’s cheaper than any upgrade I’ve ever purchased.”
Non-linear editing software upgrade that is.
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FCX. She tempts me, abuses me, beats me up, makes me feel worthless, then in the end she comes around, helps me get my work done, gives me hope and I can’t stop thinking about her.Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com -
“I honestly believe that if apple had actually scaled up the workspace for Motion, they could have taken on photoshop…”
I’m not following here, how would a motion graphics application compete with Photoshop?
“It already had a much better paint tool than After Effects, despite it’s being on the market for over 15 years.”
I’ve never used Motion, what makes it better for painting tasks than AE?
Shawn
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‘I honestly believe that if apple had actually scaled up the workspace for Motion, they could have taken on photoshop, because the effects stack is so much better than photoshops stupid history, and duplicating layers to try out effects. It already had a much better paint tool than After Effects, despite it’s being on the market for over 15 years’
If i were being generous, I’m guessing you dont use these products much or maybe its just that you dont know how to use these products.
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To answer the question, how could Motion compete with Photoshop. Well photoshop was invented in the 90’s and at the time didn’t have a huge undo buffer, it only had one undo, so in order to make effects, they were applied destructively. So if you wanted to quickly undo the effect, you actually had to make a duplicate layer, in case you changed your mind about the applied effect later, and wanted to revert to your clean layer.
As computers got more memory, In order to solve this problem, they added a history palette, so you can now step back in time and undo way back in history. But this is a silly paradigm, given how effects have evolved, and with most current tools (including Adobe After Effects), you can turn effects on and off, and also reorder them in the stack. FCP 7 works like this. Incidentally After Effects allows you set a composition at 30,000 x 30,000 pixels precisely because some designers prefer to apply effects on photos in After Effects due to the precise control you have over effects.
In Motion, you have the layer order, which is very similar to Photoshop, but the effects stack can be applied non-destructively and updates in real-time as you adjust it, and all paint and brush tools are vector based. Actually they did apply some of this technology into Aperture, but Aperture does not have any typography tools, layer tools or the amount of sophisticated masking tools in Motion. Motion also allows for 3rd party plugins to give looks and enhancements not possible with Aperture.
So if Aperture, like After Effects, allowed for a Canvas of 30,000 x 30,000 pixels, it could be a serious competitor to photoshop. As for the paint tools, they are all vector, and can be resized, rescaled, changed, tweaked, turned into a path, all after the fact. A pen is supported not only for pressure sensitivity, but also gestures could control the GUI, obviously derived from the programmers background on Discreet Combustion. (All Discreet stuff is pen based) Incidentally Combustion had a good vector paint tool… I’m sure they just took it from that. See how they animate drawings with varying stroke widths in Motion, it’s quite awesome. After Effects actually added paint and write on tools after Motion came out in CS3 I believe, but Motion paint tool can replace any of the brushes for any other object at any time, making it still more flexible.
Don’t get me wrong, I think After Effects is an awesome piece of software, and has it’s place in any motion graphic designer’s arsenal, but Motion is $50?!?! Anyway, I just like it because it’s super fast to try out ideas, and you can pretty much just hit play and see it instantly. Sometimes when you need more control of actual 3D and not the 2.5D they use in Motion, then After Effects is it. I think they complement each other rather than compete, but making animated text templates for use in FCP X is truly killer, and I used that feature a lot in FCP 7. But it was slow and prone to crashing. In FCP X it is much faster and less buggy in this area, as it better be as it’s now the primary CG.
David 😀
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David Chai
Writer . Director
http://www.davidchai.com
dc@davidchai.com
212 363 0159 -
A good post.
At this stage it feels to me as though FCP is finished as a professional NLE.
I say that for 2 reasons – firstly, there is now absoloutley NO reason for any Editor to trust Apple. As the article says, trust is an absoloutey vital element to consider when choosing the software vendor that you base your livelihood on. From the freelancer right through to the post production house, this year Apple have shown they are utterly untrustworthy. I’m not sure they can do anthing to resolve that; the damage done this year has just been too severe and from the conversations I’ve had with people the biterness and frustration hasn’t really abated since the Summer. Those that are most ‘zen’ about the situation are so because they have already moved to another platform or have already made the decision to.
Secondly – whatever add-ons or bug fixes come along, Apple are locked into some fundamental design decisions that the vast majority of professionals find simply abhorrent. We all know what these are, and I fail to see how the most deeply ingrained of these can ever be made to work in a professional environment. Call me shortsighted in this regard, but I still cannot for the life of me figure out how trashing a century’s worth of practices, paradigms, terminology and established workflows was ever anything more than hubris in the extreme. The only way this thing can survive is if it becomes the NLE of choice for a new generation, but speaking as a young (24) editor I know that the priority when your starting out HAS to be to understand, respect and conform to the standards of the industry you want to be a part of. Playing by those rules, FCPX is a total non-starter. I’m sure some geat storyellers will be able to do good work with this, but its an ISLAND and if it doesnt fit in to the rest of the industry why on earth would you consider using it if you aspire to work as an editor in any professional capacity?
This whole debate seems kind of pointless now doesn’t it? Hasn’t the dye already been cast? I’m not even sure what I’m doing here, just still trying to keep learning, processing and trying to make the soundest decisions I can for my career I guess.
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[Adam White] ” there is now absoloutley NO reason for any Editor to trust Apple. As the article says, trust is an absoloutey vital element to consider when choosing the software vendor that you base your livelihood on. “
The launch of FCPX was a PR disaster, it’s created a huge amount of ill will amongst the edit community and they have lost customers that they will likely never get back. But my guess is that as FCPX starts to add in some of the missing features it might start to gain some traction in the market again, perhaps not led by editors and post houses but possibly from Production Companies and large Corporate clients.
[Adam White] “Apple are locked into some fundamental design decisions that the vast majority of professionals find simply abhorrent. We all know what these are, and I fail to see how the most deeply ingrained of these can ever be made to work in a professional environment. Call me shortsighted in this regard, but I still cannot for the life of me figure out how trashing a century’s worth of practices, paradigms, terminology and established workflows was ever anything more than hubris in the extreme.”
True, but editors are a conservative bunch to say the least, look at the furore generated by Avid simply adding another toolbar a while ago. Also look at the fact the “new” Avid interface is pretty much exactly the same as the interface from some of the earliest versions of Avid from years ago. As for the software, once it has broadcast output and a bit more extensibility then it’s perfectly usable in a professional environment. I’ve been using it for some time now and once you get used to how it works, you can still achieve the same things as you can in other NLE’s.
[Adam White] “if it doesnt fit in to the rest of the industry why on earth would you consider using it if you aspire to work as an editor in any professional capacity? “
Because a smart Freelance Editor always keeps their options open.
[Adam White] “This whole debate seems kind of pointless now doesn’t it? Hasn’t the dye already been cast?”
Not in the slightest, FCPX has shaken the editing industry up, mostly for the wrong reasons, but it has generated lots of hugely interesting debate about the fundamental craft and business of editing.
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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